The MacTrack – iPhone, iPod, iPod Touch and Mac News

Rockaway, NJ – Today Acclivity announced it has acquired MYOB US Inc. and its Mac (and PC) development team from MYOB Limited of Australia. Acclivity will now drive global development of MYOB’s Mac OS business management products – FirstEdge, AccountEdge and AccountEdge Network Edition.

Acclivity will continue to enhance and deliver these products to its US customers. Acclivity will also develop the Mac OS products for MYOB who will be its exclusive republisher in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

Additionally, Acclivity’s new development team will continue to develop the Windows product line for their US customer base.

“This deal delivers benefits to our customers on several fronts,” said Scott Davisson, Acclivity Managing Partner. “First and foremost, it allows us to author the product roadmap for our US customers on Mac and Windows. We think they’ll be thrilled with the product direction in the coming years.”

“We’ll also be able to assert our Mac focus by building great solutions for small businesses that use Macs; an often underserved group,” Davisson said.

“This deal also allows us the flexibility to enter markets outside of the US,” added Tom Nash, Acclivity Managing Partner. “We’re now free to explore how we will bring AccountEdge back to Canada. By popular demand, I might add.”

Current MYOB US customers, as well as Australian and New Zealand Mac customers, will continue to use the same products and have access to the same support resources to which they’ve grown accustomed. “There will be no customer disruption,” Nash said.

MYOB

Acclivity develops, sells and supports award-winning small business accounting and management software for Macintosh and Windows platforms. Acclivity also offers a portfolio of business services that help small business owners to better serve the needs of their customers, their employees, and themselves. For more information, visit Acclivity LLC.

Werck, Acclivity’s Dutch joint venture with Sofa BV, develops Checkout Point of Sale for Mac, used by retailers around the globe to manage their sales and inventory needs. Recent runner up for an Apple Design Award (Best User Experience), Checkout has revolutionized Point of Sale software by allowing retailers to quickly and easily start selling in fifteen minutes.

Toronto (ON), Canada – Zevrix Solutions announced today the compatibility of its products with the Adobe Creative Suite 4 software. Zevrix Solutions products include several popular plug-ins for Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator which help professionals achieve more while doing less through automating their everyday tasks, producing error-free documents, saving disk space and cutting production costs.

The following products are now compatible with Adobe Creative Suite 4:

LinkOptimizer 3.2.4 is a workflow solution to automatically reduce the size of images linked to InDesign documents by eliminating excessive image data. LinkOptimizer helps users save valuable storage space, time and reduce production costs in various ways by reducing the size of images linked to InDesign documents. A similar application, ArtOptimizer, is available for Adobe illustrator.

BatchOutput 3.2 is a powerful professional solution to automate printing and exporting to PDF, PostScript, EPS and JPEG of multiple and single InDesign documents. Users can also export InDesign documents as single pages, assign variable file names, update modified links during processing, and process files in the background.

BatchOutput Server 4.1 automates the entire InDesign output workflow by processing files from network-based hotfolders. It frees up operator stations from the output process and allows for a single set of output settings for an entire workgroup.

InPreflight 2.6.1 is a comprehensive quality control, file packaging and reporting solution for Adobe InDesign which saves users hours of checking the documents manually and dealing with consequences of costly mistakes. InPreflight also allows users to preflight and package multiple documents, eliminating the need to collect the same links multiple times for each design.

Pricing and Availability
All Zevrix products run on Mac OS X 10.4.2 or later (including Leopard), are Universal Binaries, and work with Adobe CS, CS2, CS3 and CS4. All products can be purchased from the Zevrix Solutions website, as well as from authorized resellers.

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Located in Toronto, Canada, Zevrix Solutions provides productivity solutions for Adobe Creative Suite software, graphic file diagnostics, and Microsoft Office on Mac OS. Zevrix Solutions makes it easier for professionals to achieve more while doing less by automating their everyday tasks, producing error-free documents, saving disk space and cutting down on production costs. Copyright 2008 Zevrix Solutions. All Rights Reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Vilnius, Lithuania – The Jumsoft team today released Money 3.2 Grid, code name Grid, the noticeably better business accounting application. Localizations in German and French are improved; the user interface is renewed; and the company dealt with small bugs, too. The Jumsoft team stated that the aim of each feature is to make users’ work flow faster and that happy user feedback is proof that they have accomplished this.

“Step by step, we are getting closer to realizing our vision,” said Algirdas Unguvaitis, the general manager of Jumsoft. “Our small business accounting application is always being improved to provide satisfaction for the Money customers.”

To satisfy the desires of its customers, the Jumsoft team has improved the German and French localizations in order to solve language barrier problems and allow them to feel totally free while they work with their finances in Money.

“The interface is the most attractive element of any application, and that is why we tried to add as many new features as possible. For example, the Grid View of the categories enables customers to work faster and easier,” Unguvaitis said. The Grid View feature provides a list of icons that represent categories, so selecting an income or expenses category is fun and pleasing to the users’ eyes.

The renewed interfaces of Portfolio and Sheets and some added icons are intended to guarantee an easier way to manage transactions and to provide Money options in a more understandable way. Whether the customer is the average Mac user, an amateur, or a professional, Money gives the user an easy way to do basic accounting and personal financial management.

Money 3.2 Grid is available immediately through Jumsoft’s Web site. A free demo is available to use for 15 days.

Jumsoft
Money 3.2
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Based in scenic Vilnius, Lithuania, Jumsoft is a privately funded company founded in 2002. Committed to providing the highest quality software, Jumsoft is a dedicated group of Apple Macintosh experts whose goal is creating and marketing exciting, easy-to-use and powerful applications for the Mac Platform. Jumsoft most recently focused its attention on maximizing the potential of Apple’s iWork, quickly becoming the leading provider of Keynote themes and objects. Copyright 2002-2008 Jumsoft. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

London, UK – Ben Software today announced the release of SecuritySpy 1.6, the premier multi-camera video surveillance software on the Macintosh platform. With features such as motion detection, real-time compression of multiple video and audio feeds, and network video streaming, SecuritySpy is designed for demanding video surveillance applications.

“SecuritySpy 1.6 is a significant update with exciting new features,” said Ben Bird, the developer of SecuritySpy. “Combined with Mac OS X, the rock-solid operating system from Apple, SecuritySpy offers unsurpassed functionality, stability and ease of use.”

SecuritySpy supports a wide variety of network cameras and video servers, including the popular Axis range, as well as FireWire, USB, and PCI video input devices. SecuritySpy feautres sophisticated motion detection, which can be used to trigger recording as well as email alerts and audio alarms. The built-in web server allows remote viewing of live video and previously captured footage, as well as configuration of the software, from over the internet using a web browser or a mobile device such as the iPhone.

Pricing and Availability:
SecuritySpy can be downloaded and tested free of charge for 30 days before purchasing. Pricing is in British Pounds or US Dollars and depends on the number of simultaneous cameras used, ranging from £29.90 (approx. $49) for the single-camera version, to £299.00 (approx. $499) for the unlimited-camera version.

SecuritySpy 1.6
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Ben Software Ltd is an independent software development company focused on providing high-quality video-related software for the Macintosh platform.

Gold Coast, Australia – Binary Salad Games is pleased to announce the immediate release of Boomer’s Sky Fishing, their first game release for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The application is available today on Apple’s App store. Boomer’s Sky Fishing is an addictive game of skill that has you controlling “Big Boomer” the cat as he throws sticks of TNT at unsuspecting fish swimming by. Combining slick, colorful graphics with intuitive iPhone and iPod touch controls, Boomer’s Sky Fishing is as hilarious as it is addictive. See if you can beat your highest score by blasting unsuspecting fish (and others!) ever higher with Boomer’s TNT!

How scoring works: Each type of fish is worth a different multiplier. Your score is be based on the multiplier of the nearest fish to the dynamite explosion. This fish is then used for the primary height calculation which is then multiplied by the number of fish also caught in the blast. Each game consists of 5 rounds which are totaled together to form your final score.

Pricing and Availability:
Big Boomer’s Sky Fishing is only $1.99 (USD) and now available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Big Boomer’s Sky Fishing
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Binary Salad Games’ development philosophy is ‘All the flavor, none of the fat’. This implies straightforward, fun games, without the ‘bloat’ of gimmicks and overly-complex gameplay while retaining high-production values and attention to detail you’d expect from more expensive games. Binary Salad Games is a privately held independent developer. Copyright 2008 Binary Salad Games. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Victoria, B.C., Canada – Late Night Software Ltd. today proudly announces the immediate availability of Script Debugger 4.5, the latest version of its award-winning AppleScript authoring environment. With more than 28 major new features and significant improvements to existing ones, Script Debugger 4.5 continues to make AppleScript easier still.

“We’re fortunate in that Script Debugger gets a heavy workout among our many users who rely on it daily to automate tasks,” says company president Mark Alldritt. “They provide valuable feedback that inspires us to keep improving Script Debugger to meet all their scripting needs”, he says. “We have no doubt that version 4.5 will exceed everyone’s expectations.”

Among the many new features in Script Debugger 4.5 are:

The editor now fully supports Unicode on Leopard systems. Unicode text will be properly retained when scripts are compiled or opened, allowing you to include text in multiple languages and alphabets within your scripts.

Script Debugger now ‘auto-saves’ recovery information whenever you execute a script. Should AppleScript, Script Debugger or a Scripting Addition crash, Script Debugger will recover the script the next time it’s launched, preventing the loss of valuable work.

Script Debugger 4.5 is scriptable. The scripting interface allows Applescript to create, edit, compile, execute and save script documents. The scripting interface also allows you to invoke event handlers and subroutine handlers in other script windows.

New Scripts menu and inspector have been added where you can place scripts that drive Script Debugger. Key bindings can be assigned to scripts for frequently used operations. The new Scripts menu and inspector support OSA scripts, applications, Unix scripts (sh, ruby perl, etc.) and Automator workflows. You can use the Scripts menu/inspector to run a wide variety of scripts that take full advantage of Mac OS X.

Script length limitations have been removed on Leopard systems. Script Debugger would previously lose its ability to display AppleScript formatting for long scripts (>3000 lines). This limitation no longer exists when running on Leopard systems.

You can now split the editor vertically and/or horizontally. This lets you view and edit multiple sections of a script at the same time, enabling you to easily spot changes or similarities.

The Find and Replace panel now provides Regular Expression searching using the ICU Regular Expression engine. This lets you perform powerful Regular Expression-based finds and text substitutions on your scripts without resorting to an external text editor.

The editor now automatically closes AppleScript block structures as you type. If you type ‘repeat with i from 1 to 10′ followed by Return, for example, Script Debugger will automatically insert the matching ‘end’ statement, allowing you to enter AppleScript block structures more quickly.

The editor now provides a Text Substitution feature that allows short keywords to be replaced with boilerplate code as you type. Typing ‘dd’, followed by a space, for example, causes ‘display dialog “message”‘ to be inserted with ‘message’ selected. You can define your own text substitutions to suit your scripting environment.

The editor now automatically closes parentheses and quotes as you type, making it easier to enter string literals, lists, and records into your script.

Script Debugger 3.0′s ‘Edit with BBEdit’ command has been reintroduced and now works with Bare Bones Software’s BBEdit and TextWrangler or with MacroMate’s TextMate text editors. This command lets you temporarily transfer a script to one of these editors to take advantage of their powerful features.

Major improvements made to the UI for Editing Libraries include: a new popup button listing the libraries in Script Debugger’s Application Support/Libraries folder, making it possible to add libraries without going through the Open File panel; the ‘Relative To’ popup in the Add Library open panel now changes directories to match the relative path chosen; and the libraries toolbar button in the script window now offers a popup listing the libraries in Script Debugger’s Application Support/Libraries folder. This makes the management of libraries associated with a script vastly more efficient.

You can now invoke a script’s ‘on open’ handler using a ‘tell document x to open {file 1, file 2}’ statement from another Script Debugger script window. ‘On open’ events are added to the Event History menus so that they can be quickly recalled from the UI.

Script results and View windows can now display Unicode strings (related to the Editor’s Unicode improvements), allowing you to more easily debug scripts that work with strings written in various languages and alphabets.

You can now invoke subroutines in a script via the scripting interface: ‘tell document x to subroutineName(p1, p2)’. Subroutine call events are added to the Event History menus so that they can be quickly recalled from the UI.

Script Debugger provides expanded and improved documentation for AppleScript’s built-in data types, helping novices understand AppleScript’s built-in data types. Experienced users can more easily recall the terms that AppleScript’s built-in types offer.

Sections in the dictionary display are collapsible, allowing you to hide dictionary information that is not relevant to your task.

User configurable Command Keys bindings. This let you define command key shortcuts for comments that you use frequently. It also allows you to change or remove command key shortcuts provided by Script Debugger. Command Keys bindings can also be assigned to clippings or scripts.

Added Quick Look support. This lets you view the source of your scripts without having to open the script in Script Debugger. It also allows you to avoid launching applications that may need to be running in order to view the script in Script Debugger.

Script Debugger 4.5 requires the following hardware and software:
* G4 or G5 PowerPC or Intel processor is recommended
* 50MB free disk space
* Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later; Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or later is recommended

Pricing and Availability:
Script Debugger 4.5 sells for $199 (USD). The Script Debugger 4.0 to 4.5 upgrade sells for $49 (USD).

Script Debugger 4.5 is the premier AppleScript authoring environment. It provides everything you need to quickly and easily author AppleScripts that work. No other scripting tool can match Script Debugger’s capabilities for creating, editing and debugging AppleScripts. Its sophisticated Dictionary browser provides far more information than any other tool can and eliminates guesswork and needless experimentation. Simply put, Script Debugger makes AppleScript easy.

Late Night Software Ltd.
Script Debugger 4.5
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Late Night Software Ltd., established in 1995, is a privately held company that specializes in the development of award-winning Macintosh scripting tools. Copyright 1995-2008 Late Night Software Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, AppleScript and Apple Automator are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Vienna, Austria – Dare to be Creative Ltd. today announced the release of Sponge 1.0, a system clean and optimize tool for Mac OS X Leopard. Sponge is the latest addition to Dare to be Creative’s portfolio of Mac OS X utility applications, and combines three effective techniques to reclaim disk space into a single tool: removing applications, sweeping disk hogs and finding duplicates.

Removing applications:
Sponge tells users what applications are installed on their system, how much space these applications use, and where they are located. Once found, Sponge offers the option to remove applications safely from the system.

Sweeping disk hogs:
To help users that are running out of disk space but do not know where to start cleaning up, Sponge will show which files and directories take up the most space. Sponge then allows users to delete those files and directories from the disk.

Finding duplicates:
The third way in which Sponge helps users reclaim disk space is by finding and removing duplicate files on their disks. Sponge lists how much space the duplicate files occupy, and where they are located.

Features:
* Find and safely remove installed applications
* Track down and delete large files and directories
* Find duplicate files
* Easy-to-use, all-in-one system and maintenance tool

Minimum Requirements:
* Mac OS X Version 10.4 or higher
* Universal Binary for PowerPC and Intel

Pricing and Availability:
Sponge is $19.95 (USD), and available as a free download from the Sponge website. It runs initially in a 15-day trial mode with all features active. This is the first release of Sponge.

Sponge – Official Website
Sponge – Screenshots

Located in Vienna, Austria, Dare to be Creative Ltd. is a software company founded in 2006 by a group of Mac enthusiasts. The Dare to be Creative team focuses exclusively on developing utility applications for Mac OS X designed to save valuable time while being enjoyable and easy to use. The current portfolio includes a) iArchiver, an archiving and file compression utility, b) Yum, a recipe manager, c) iCombiner, an image merge tool, d) Renamer4Mac, a batch file renamer, e) ResizeMe, a batch image editor that resizes, scales, rotates and flips images, f) Dragoman, a batch file converter, and g) Sponge, a system clean and optimize tool. All Material and Software (C) 2006-2008 Dare to be Creative Ltd. / All Rights Reserved.

Melbourne, Australia – Bjango is proud to introduce Darkness 1.2, an advanced world clock with some unique and interesting features. Darkness lets you see the current moon phase, the next 3 major moon phases, time for sunrise, noon, sunset, moonrise and moonset for any city in the world.

Darkness features a huge database of well over 8500 cities and 180 countries. Custom cities can be added in the unlikely event that you can’t find what you’re after. If you do enter a custom city, it can be sent to Bjango for inclusion in a future version of Darkness.

A special ‘Current Location’ city can also be used, which will track your position dynamically using GPS, giving you sunrise, sunset and other information for exactly wherever you may be.

Everything Darkness needs is stored in the app itself, so no internet connection is required.

Darkness is now localized for German and partially localized for several other languages, including French and Spanish, with more languages to follow in future versions.

What’s new in version 1.2:
* Added “Current Location” city that uses your current location from GPS.
* Added 6000 new cities (over 8500 in total now).
* Fixed timezone bugs with several cities.
* Added editing of custom cities.
* Added German localization.
* Added partial localization for French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Portguese, Russian, Spanish.
* Updated moon images.
* Improved accuracy of moon phase calculations.
* Now shows exact time of moon phases.

Supported Languages:
* US English, UK English, German. Partial localization for French, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, Dutch, Portguese, Russian, and Spanish.

System Requirements:
* iPhone or iPod Touch 2.0 or later

Pricing and Availability:
Darkness 1.2 for iPhone and iPod Touch is only $1.99 (USD) and available exclusively through Apple’s App Store.

Bjango
Darkness 1.2
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Located in sunny Melbourne, Australia, Bjango is a privately funded company founded in 2008 by Marc Edwards. Bjango (pronounced be-jan-go) is a new venture from part of the team that created iStat pro, iStat menus, Organized and quite a few other successful donationware apps and widgets under the moniker of iSlayer. Bjango currently has 4 iPhone apps on the App Store, with many more to come. iSlayer was formed in early June 2005. Bjango has been working on iPhone apps since the release of the iPhone SDK. Copyright 2008 Bjango. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.